The Great Irken Escape
by cgaussie
Summary: Just how did Zim manage to escape Food Courtia to arrive at Impending Doom 2? Read on!


The Great Irken Escape  
Written by Cartman's Girl  
  
Note to all: Okay, this is my filler fic. Meaning, this is what happened to our lovely Invader Zim after he was banished to Food Courtia and how he escaped to Irk again. There might be traces of 'Invader Zim: Prelude to the Nightmare' which was written by myself and my good friend Snodin (and can be found in my archive). I'm not sure. So read on! I'll try to make this as maddening as possible. And this was written before 'Fryhook' came out _anywhere_.  
  
~*~  
  
Ah, Food Courtia. The most famous Galactic Food Court in the known Galaxy! You can get some pretty nummy things there, well, nummy if you're an alien and like eating the dead babies of other creatures. They also make great toast, from what I've heard. You all know how great TOAST is, right? Good.  
  
Well there are many many little workers. Most are teens, taking this job to get their ugly parental units off their backs about being lazy. Others, are slaves. Bought on E-Bay and other such bidding sites and planets. But, majority speaking are banished aliens sent there by their residential planets. Why? Because they suck! Haha!  
  
One of these many many banished ones is ZIM! Yes, ZIM! The mighty little Irken would-be Invader! Would-be, if he hadn't blown up half his planet in a mad fit of power. That, and be responsible for the death of not one, but _two_ past Tallest. And cause massive black outs on Irk and on Devastus the Training Planet. And other nasty things which we better not mention because they might make your eyes bleed with PAIN! Yes, pain is bad.  
  
Well, this little Irken has been a bad boy; obviously. So, his great, powerful, all knowing _and_ Tall leaders, the Almighty Tallest had him put before the Control Brains. They decided due to his stupidness and ways of being insane towards his own species, he'd be best sent off to work on another planet. So here he is, surrounded by tall looming towers of dirty plates. His mission? Scrub and clean them!  
  
"A truly gifted Invader such as Zim should not be lowered to such pitiful tasks! Wash, rinse, clean, dry repeat! Why the repeat?! They get clean enough the first time!!" Zim ranted aloud to himself. See, since he had no friends (sad truth, isn't it?) he was forced to make conversation with himself. And often in third-person. He's insane you know.  
  
Our story takes place on a normal day. Yus yus. Slorbies has slimed their way across Food Courtia, making various workers clean up after them. Planet Jackers had once again said they'd drag the planet into their sun, but they were told off by the Tallest. Yay. Like not many days, Zim had been given another task. Frying! Yus yus, using the advanced space technology, frying only took mere seconds to be done.   
  
So Zim stood there in his frying glory. Protective shield glasses (since frying live animals always caused a few spatter flickers of fry juice and it hurt when it hit you!) adorn his pretty reddish-pink eyes, powerful black leather gloves over his normal black gloves and other such protective clothing. Like plastic sleeve things over his antennae. His boss, known as Sklarpigonariolopswinghopia the Slug, known as 'Sklar' for short (thank the creator), was just giving Zim the main run down on the whole procedure.  
  
"All right then, first you get your order there." Sklar pointed with his tiny nub hands to a large screen which flashed orders now and then. "Then you go here," he pointed to a control panel covered in buttons and labels. So huge it was you needed to hover to find the right thing you needed! Thanks to alphabetic placing, this was made easier. "And order your ingredient. It comes out there." Another point, this time to a large space near the fryer. "You gotta kill it of course, one laser shot to the head should do it."  
  
Zim wasn't really taking this all in, he was day dreaming. Ah, day dreaming. One of the little activities which had kept him sane all these past days. Well, as sane as possible for Zim. His day dream today was about his return to Irk, after of course making a few crucial stops and conquering a lot of planets. Also the Tallest making _him_ ruler and cleaning his boots with their tongues.  
  
"ZIM!" the little dream bubbles popped in his mind, Sklar waking him from the little happy land. "Are you listening to me?!"  
  
"Yes yes," Zim waved a gloved hand, "Get order, press button, kill kill fry fry yadda yadda NOW BE GONE! Let Zim do his work of doom upon the meats!" he waved his frying utensil – a spork as it seems – at Sklar. "Uhm er, Boss sir." Sklar grunted.  
  
"You better get this right Zim… after the egg incident no one really trusts you anymore." Sklar muttered.  
  
"How could Zim know that wasn't really an egg??"  
  
"I dunno, the flashing lights? Bah, good luck Zim. Try not to burn the place down." Sklar said, then leeched his way from the room. Zim stood there for a while, then threw the spork down.  
  
"I grow tired of this pathetic job! Being banished is a dirty job and no Irken should do such menial tasks!" just at that moment, the screen flickered to life. It read something in a bizarre alien language, I can't read it. Darn my reading skills suck! "Eh?" Zim's antennae twitched. Obviously he can't read it either! Man, his reading skills suck!  
  
He looks slightly confused, but shrugs and walks over to the control panel. Thus a panel opens and a hideously ugly animal I can't even describe it. It has lots of eyes, tentacle thingies, suction cups on the tentacles, greasy face and so on. Zim looks as disgusted as anyone with eyes would.  
  
"YEARGH!!" he screams, and attacks it with his spork. Well, he throws it more often then not. It hits the animal in the face, and it keels over dead. Zim blinks. "VICTORY FOR ZIM!" he cries out. Then just throws it into the fryer.   
  
Time marches on it's stomach, or that's what I've heard. Time must have a dirty stomach. Anyway. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. Either way, one week later Zim's seen at a counter now with a pin reading 'ZIM' on his chest.  
  
"Welcome to Food Courtia, may I take your pitiful order?" he asks something that looks similar to the alien from the cult classic film 'Aliens'. It roars/slathers something in response. "All righty, so a human carcass filled with the oval larvae eggs of the Xytanthia fly from Planet Nema. Do you want flies with that?" another grunt/slather. "Okie dokie, move on."  
  
'So this is what Zim has been reduced to… taking orders for aliens and passing them on. It's horrible!' Zim thinks to himself, suddenly he blinks as he sees Invader Skoodge is now next in line! Yay, I love Skoodge. He's so Skoodge-ful.  
  
"Skoodge?" Zim asks, as if asking himself if it's Skoodge or not. No reason in asking someone if they are who they are, they might question your brain meats. And how could Zim _not_ recognize Skoodge? After the two causing the black out on Devastus back when they were adorable smeety smeets to their wild shindig parties during their last years of Devastus, how could Zim forget Skoodge?  
  
"Zim! Oh hey, how're you handling the whole banishment thing?" Skoodge asked, grinning at his old associate.  
  
"Eh, it's a waste of time! So anyway, welcome to Food Courtia, may I take your stupid excuse of an order so you can fill your guts?" Zim asked, getting back into routine before asking again. "And what are you doing this part of the galaxy? I thought you had Extended Training on Planet Meathooks?"  
  
"I'll have the Irken Special. And didn't you hear? Impending Doom II's gonna be happening soon!" Skoodge declared, balling his fists happily. But he said this in a hushed tone, so no aliens nearby would hear. Zim's antennae stood up.  
  
"It is?!" he pressed in the order as he did.  
  
"Yuh-huh! I've been selected with other Irkens to be a part of O.I.D.II! Isn't that neat?" the tubby little Irken squeaked in response, but he _is_ taller then Zim by an inch. Zim frowned, muttering to himself.  
  
"Oh yes neat." Zim replied. "Move along and collect your order then." "Ah thanks, and great seeing you again Zim! We should catch up when you have breaks!"  
  
"My breaks are five minutes a day and that's my rest time."  
  
"Oh… bye then!" Zim watched his old smeethood's associate leave and vanish into the giant swarm that was the line of orders to be picked up. He felt a tinge of sadness tug at his squeedly spooch. He longed to be an Invader again, to be going off to a planet to doom the civilians to make the Tallest proud of him. Ah, the Tallest. Another pair of his old smeethood associates. Oh how they used to play during break time. Well, technically they'd chase him with scary things and beat him up but oh, the memories (and the scars) he'll cherish forever.  
  
That's when it struck him. No, not a tray of food even if it did hit his head. The idea of escaping. He'd escape and get to Conventia the Convention Hall Planet and then become a great Invader! Now, to get out without being realised… a-hah! He scooted over to the right, and pulled down on a lever. Now normally this would do nothing. But this lever was labelled,  
  
"WARNING! DO NOT PULL THIS LEVER UNLESS THE GALAXY IS COMING TO AN END! THIS LEVER PUTS ALL SECURITY SYSTEMS ON VERY VERY VERY LOW SO ANYONE WITH HALF A BRAIN COULD EASILY ESCAPE! DON'T PULL LEVER!" Well you can guess what happened. Sirens went off, lights flashed, and so on. Chaos ensured!  
  
And amongst this chaos, Zim made his escape. But not unnoticed. One of the Supervisor insect-like alien known as D'phar saw him. He had seen him pulled the lever too. So D'phar did the good thing and pressed the button which stops the security. But too late! Zim had squeezed through the main doors of Food Courtia and to freedom!  
  
"All systems on alert, all systems on alert!" screamed D'phar into a communicator, "Zim has escaped! Repeat, Zim has escaped!!" outside, sirens wailed at the escaper. Lasers shot at the ground, Zim dodging the blasts to avoid being killed and cooked up to an alien. His spider legs activated and he was carried across the ground.  
  
"There!" he had spotted the parking lot for Irkens. Most of them were coloured blue, green and so on. Only one was red, Zim skidded to a halt by it and looked in. A pair of key rings with 'Skoodge' written in Irk could be seen. "Well, that's handy!" he said. Soon enough Zim was in the Voot and starting it up. Now the Guards could only watch as not only Zim's Voot Cruiser teared away, but other escapees from Food Courtia.  
  
Up in the control chamber, the ruler of Food Courtia grunted. He was a pig-like alien, but looked more like Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars. His associate, a rake-thin alien who looked like a stick figure that was drawn by a little kid squeaked.  
  
"Escapees number 47 sir." It squeaked. The Big Boss grunted. "Zim was amongst them." The Big Boss's eyes opened.  
  
"Which Voot did he take?" he asked, slobbering as he did.  
  
"The red one." Said his associate, pointing to a screen which shown the Voot Cruiser suddenly entering light speed, and was gone.  
  
"VICTORY FOR ZIM!" Zim cried from within the Voot Cruiser. He had thrown off his uniform, well the Food Courtia one at least and was now in his usual Irken uniform. "Now, where is that information…" he spied the information screen and clicked it on. Images of Irken ways of transport flashed on screen, then information on Impending Doom II. He skimmed over it, grew bored – as we often tend to do when we read boring things – and pressed the down button of the screen. Eventually it shown the co-ordinates of Conventia the Convention Hall Planet. Zim grinned widely.  
  
This day had come.  
  
[The END! Or, technically the Beginning of the Nightmare]


End file.
